258 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
July 0. 
plot will then be in the best possible condition. Weeds 
will be checked, and the soil laid up to mellow with the 
winter frosts. 
The second year, the same process should ho followed. 
Take up one of each pair, and plant these thinnings in 
the nursery; though, if a piece of ground was prepared 
the summer previously, these two-year-old seedlings 
would he strong enough to plant in it at once; and 
tints the breadth of ground under the Oak-culture 
would bo doubled, and an experiment instituted to try 
whether non-removed seedlings, or young transplanted 
trees, would soonest make timber-trees. It seems a 
waste and a pity to throw away these nice young trees; 
yet, if there is not place for them, or the proprietor may 
not think fit to increase his timber crop, they must, in 
such a case, he thrown away, because thinned they must be. 
After this second thinning the ground should be dug 
over, and thus left in good condition once more. The 
young trees will probably he a foot-and-a-half high, they 
will stand two feet apart in the rows alternating with 
each other, and now the pruning should bo commenced. 
Many of them will have prominent side-branches, a 
kind of gourmands, that are robbing their neighbours. 
The small branches, and also the leaders, those gluttons, 
I would remove at once, with a sharp knife. And here 
I would stop and make a few general remarks on pruning 
forest trees. 1st. It should always be commenced early, 
because the small wounds are more quickly healed. 
2nd. Each shoot pruned off should be cut close to the 
main stem, because then there will be no hard dead 
knots in the wood. 3rd. There should be a few small 
branches left on each stem, to draw rip a larger quantity 
of sap, as well ns to sheltorthe stems from cold draughts 
of air; and, lastly, this pruning should be done at least 
every alternate year, till the trees have reached not less 
than thirty l'ect high. They may be then allowed to 
form natural heads of spreading branches. 13y pruning 
frequently, no stronger instruments than a good knife, 
and a mallet, and long-handled chisel, will be necessary. 
I consider it bad management when the bill-hook or the 
saw has to he brought to use as pruning instruments. 
To return to our thinned plantation. After the 
second year’s thinning is performed, the trees may be 
left to grow and draw up straight (due attention being 
paid to hoeing, weeding, pruning, and annual digging,) 
for two or three years, according to the progress they 
make. The forester will examine them and act accord¬ 
ingly. If they appear crowded, then, in the autumn, go 
over them again with a firm hand and bold heart. Let 
every alternate one be removed at once. These will be 
strong plants, probably three or four feet high, and will 
be excellent for filling up old woods that have had the 
greater part of the timber felled for use. If used for 
this purpose, good, wide, deep holes should be dug, the 
surface weeds, or turf, placed at the bottom, a layer of 
soil put upon them, the tree plautod .just a trifle deeper 
than it grew before, the clean soil filled in around 
it firmly trodden down, and then left to root and 
grow on apace. These thinnings having been removed 
and disposed of, the young plantation trees will then 
be four feet apart, which will be a sufficient space for 
the next four years, the pruning, &e., being duly 
attended to. The trees will now he a complete cover 
to the ground, smothering the weeds and grass, and 
beginning to look like a wood. At the end of the four 
years the same process of thinning must be resortod 
to. Every alternate one must come out again, but now 
they will be too large to transplant, but will make many 
useful things, such as hoops for the cooper, stakes for 
the flower-garden, or hedger rods for hurdle-makers, &c. 
I ho trees that are lclt will, of course, be eight feet apart, 
and will now, everything having gone on well, be a 
gratifying sight to the cultivator. T. Appleby. 
{To be continued.) 
A LEW WORDS ON LATE PEAS. 
Whatever advantage a southern district possesses 
over a northern one in the way of having certain crops 
a few days earlier fit for use, there is certainly some 
advantages which the less favoured one possesses which 
it would not be right to undervalue, and amongst such 
advantages is the production of a late crop of Peas in a 
good condition, which many places, possessing many 
excellent qualifications in other ways, are unable to do, 
unless when accompanied with such troublo and ex¬ 
pense as makes their presence partake more of a “ forced 
character,” than a natural or ordinary production; and 
the many failures that happen to crops that are intended 
for a late supply, has been such as to deter some cul¬ 
tivators from attempting their growth ; thus contenting 
themselves with furnishing this very popular article for 
only one-half the time that it is capable being bad in 
other places loss favoured in many respects. 
Without attempting to raise the veil which shrouds the 
history of this and other legumes, as well as cereals, 
from the prying search of an enquiring age, it may 
fairly be set down as being amongst the hardiest of the 
class of pulse-bearing plants; not but that others will 
bear as severe a winter, but the hardships of frost and 
snow seem less fatal to the Pea than the mildew and 
other evils they have to encounter during summer, which 
evils, being more numerous in a warm climate than in a 
cold ouo, make their cultivation in the former a much 
more difficult and uncertain matter, than in a district less 
1 genial in other respets. Now, as this arises from dif- 
| ferent causes, it may not be uninteresting here to notice 
them particularly. 
In the first place, if we compare the earliest variety of 
Pea with the cereals commonly grown, we see that it 
arrives at maturity before they do, and, consequently, 
j “Nature, that all-important” instructor of all our 
desigus, has evidently intended to exempt the Pea from 
that scourge, “ the mildew,” which attacks it so un¬ 
mercifully when it has to endure the dry air and 
parched ground of dog-days; for it is reasonable to 
suppose that the fluids necessary to their healthy ex¬ 
istence may not he forthcoming at such a dry time; or if 
we oven have a late season, it does not follow that rain 
alone possesses all the qualifications requisite to a sound, 
healthy, cultivation: hence, the failures which often 
take placo as well in a moist season as a dry one, when 
other things do not favour their well-being. And as it is 
more in unison with the desigus of nature that the 
period noticed above should be dry rather than wet, it - 
follows that a wet season may be fairly said to be an 
unhealthy one for vegetation in a general way, and it is 
vain to think that a shower in August or September will 
have the same beneficial results as one in April; con¬ 
sequently, the Pea becomes unhealthy, and easily falls a 
prey to those diseases which aro so ready to attack a 
disabled plant, and, as it is before observed, that this 
tendency to succumb to tbo evils above exists in a 
greater degree in the south of England than in the 
north of it and Scotland, it follows, that in the majority 
of seasons the prolonged period in which good, useful 
Peas can be had lor table in the latter district, is more 
than will compensate for the few days earlier that tho 
southern portion is favoured with. This, however, is 
not the only benefit, for it o.ften happens, that in districts 
noted for early Peas, after the first crops have been off, 
aud the article has been in use say two months, the 
scantiness of the other crops which follow is often a loss 
both of time and space; because they having been sown 
with a view to come into use, at a given time, and 
sticking and other attendance given thorn, a considerable 
space of ground is put under crop which, being un¬ 
fortunate and useless, displaces other things that.might 
have become profitable. Now, although it would be too 
